uninstalling raid 0

[lolly]

hi everyone, i would like restore my 2 hard drives currently in a RAID 0 striping arrayback to being simply individual drives. They are not SATA drives. How do I do this? I have tried doing it in the bios unsuccessfully. The users manual is It is the Promise RAID Function for chipset 20265 20276.
I'd really appreciate any help.
I don't mind losing the data stored as I have backed it up.
Thanks

 

[amdskip]

You need to enter the area of the promise setup, F10 maybe? I can't remember but its in the same are that you used to create the array I believe.

 

[lolly]

I've tried that... do I have to change any setting on the hardrives themselves...they are ATA 100. Should I change them to cable select?
Do I need to unplug anything from the gigabyte RAID enabled motherboard?
I did'nt build the computer, the company that did has since gone belly up.
RAID is a mystery to me. I would simply like to have two drives back as I dont need speed.
Its so infuriating that you cannot find any information on the net that is a simple walkthrough saying change this setting etc etc.
Any help or directions to where I can get a kind of walkthrough would be great...many thanks

 

[Tu13erhead]

You shouldn't need to physically change anything. I just deleted the stripes in the RAID utility and that was that.

You should see something on boot that says like, "Press F4 to enter RAID Setup", at least, that's what mine says.

If you could post the make and model of the motherboard we should be able to find something about it in the manual.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

When you boot the computer, the Promise BIOS should come up for a few seconds. Tap whatever key is indicated to enter the Promise BIOS menu. You need to select the array and "break" it.

WARNING: Be aware that when you do this you will lose EVERYTHING on the array!!!!!! You must first backup your data or you will lose it. There is no way to break the array in RAID 0 without losing everything on the drives.

You will need to do a clean install of Windows afterwards.

You could clone the array to a single drive instead of doing a clean install, but you CANNOT just boot from it and expect it to work. You'll need to perform at least a FIXBOOT procedure on the drive, and may need to do a Repair Install of Windows XP.

FIXBOOT PROCEDURE: Boot from the XP Install CD-Rom and choose the "Repair from Recovery Console" option during setup. At the command prompt type FIXBOOT and press the Enter key.

Windows Repair install instructions: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Hope this helps...

 

[lolly]

How do you clone the array to a single drive ?
Thanks for the info link to michael stevens, the information there is great.

 

[amdskip]

Ha, good one, there may be a way but I wouldn't do it. It would have to be a seperate drive not part of the array if there was a way. Reinstall and start fresh. Backup first of course.

 

[lolly]

Hi again everyone,
I have tried evry which way to break the RAID 0 array...cannot do it.
When I enter the utility at startup I am only given the option to delete the array.
Which I do, I agree to these changes and thereafter it boots up the same as it was prior to deletion?
I am missing something essential here?
What will happen if I physically remove one hard drive ?
If that breaks the array, will it automatically rebuild when I put it back in?
I just want a non RAID setup, just my two seperate hard drives.
What if I try to reformat the drive fom windows desktop itself?
Any help appreciated

 

[jalaram]

Is the Raid controller onboard or a PCI card? You should have a separate IDE connector on the mb. You could attach the two drives to the plain IDE connector.